Lucre and the Light

Vivienne Sworder remembers the day last year when she first discovered the artwork of Thomas Kinkade. An avid collector of dollhouse furniture, she was browsing for additional pieces while on vacation in Florida. "My husband kept disappearing," she recalls. "We were looking at furniture, and he kept disappearing." She eventually found him on a sofa in a quiet corner of the store. His excuse: not that he was shirking his dollhouse duty. He had been so transfixed by a painting that he felt compelled to sit and gaze at it. The sun-dappled gardenscape also captivated Vivienne and distracted her from the...